The 2024 Antler River Poetry Contest Winning Poems
We are delighted to publish the winning poems of our 2024 poetry contest judged by Annick MacAskill. Along with the winning poems, we are including the poets’ photos and bios and the judge’s notes.
1st Prize: “Parkinson’s: A Petrarchan Sonnet” by Christopher Green
Parkinson’s: A Petrarchan Sonnet fire ants dance upon your decaying body, ever-fleeting thoughts mince what once were. now hands contort, as per tremors like ripples of hot tea! for equilibrium has left thee with a forsaken stir, memory—all but a forgotten blur. who are you... if not he? the man with rope for two feet, captain of vessel-less waters navigating with maps spoken incomplete to pursue a fragmented testimony of disorders, melancholically muttering obsolete words which weigh upon wounded shoulders.
Christopher Richard Green is a multidisciplinary artist, born and raised in London, Ontario. With a passion for self-expression, he explores the human condition through photography and more recently, creative writing. His work reflects an introspective pursuit of meaning and identity amidst the complexities of contemporary life. This is his first poetry publication!
Judge’s Notes
Exemplary in its mastery of rhyme, diction, and metaphor, “Parkinson’s: A Petrarchan Sonnet” is an honest, moving poem.
2nd Prize: “genesis” by Olivia Saldua
genesis in the beginning there were seven days in a nameless month warmed in the palm like modeling clay you were there you saw it all happen your eyes painted the loneliest blue you thought “god, how lovely the world is and how cruel that i long for more” and then there i was built up from the dust like a breath knocked from your chest and there it all goes, the weight of your being your body finds mine in the fading light from the silence we come and if you’re with me back into the silence i would willingly go
Olivia Saldua is an aspiring writer from Brampton, Ontario (who just moved away from London). She attended Western University, where she studied French and English, with a minor in Creative Writing. She also studied creative writing with a specialization in poetry at Humber’s School for Writers. She is in the process of getting her debut collection published. She is always looking for her next adventure.
Judge’s Notes
Direct and surprising, “genesis” offers a fresh take on one of our world’s oldest myths.
3rd Prize: “Moose Poem” by Gray Brogden
Moose Poem The moose lumbers through the forest, snapping twigs and crushing dry leaves under-hoof. The moose flies a spaceship to the moon, orbits twice, flies back to Earth, then lands without anybody noticing. The moose hosts a bi-weekly Skip-Bo game at the lake, the beaver currently holds the crown. The moose just received his PhD. The moose dives under the water, scattering the perch and the walleye, he grips pondweed in his mouth and pulls—the cool water sloshing over his shiny coat. The moose moves to Newfoundland and copulates prolifically. The moose quilts a blanket for the winter. The moose hosts a party somewhere in the woods, he serves birch bark and tortilla chips, the squirrels show up late. The moose pauses in a clearing—the snow fresh and crisp around him, he looks once, looks twice, shimmies his whole body, from snout to tail, and sends his antlers flying.
The 2023/24 Student Writer-in-Residence at Western University, Gray Brogden is a passionate writer, poet, and performer, living and studying on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak and Attawandaron peoples (London ON). Her work has been published in local, provincial and national anthologies, and she was the 2023 recipient of both the Lillian Kroll Prize in Creative Writing and the Marguerite R. Dow Canadian Heritage Writing Award.
Judge’s Notes
“Moose Poem” is charmingly enigmatic. A promising piece of writing.
Announcing the Winners of Our 2024 Poetry Contest
🎉🎉🎉 We are delighted to reveal the winners of our 2024 open theme poetry contest, chosen by Annick MacAskill
1st Prize: “Parkinson’s: A Petrarchan Sonnet”
by Christopher Green
2nd Prize: “genesis”
by Olivia Saldua
3rd Prize: “Moose Poem”
by Gray Brogden
Hear these poems at our Wednesday April 24 event at 7:00pm; visit our homepage for details.
Poetry Contest Deadline Extended!
Dear poets, we are extending the Antler River Poetry 2024 Open Theme Contest entry deadline to Monday March 18th, 2024. You now have until then to submit your work. For more information about the contest please visit our Poetry Contest page.
Antler River Poetry 2024 Open Theme Contest
Submit your best work to Antler River Poetry’s 2024 Open Theme poetry contest, judged by Governor General Award winning poet Annick MacAskill! Contest entries must be one poem of no more than 40 lines, on any topic, in any style; only submit original work that has not been previously published in print or online. No AI-generated submissions are allowed.
Send poems in PDF format by email only to arpcontest@gmail.com. Please include your name, your complete contact information (including mailing address), and the title of your poem in the body of the email. Poems will be presented anonymously to our judge, so please do not include your name in the PDF file of your poem. You must be a resident of (or attending school in) London, ON and surrounding area to enter. Winners will be announced in mid-April 2024 (only winners will be contacted)
- First Prize is $100
- Second Prize is $75
- Third Prize is $50
The winning poets will have their work published on Antler River Poetry’s website and will be invited to read their winning pieces at our April event.
Antler River Poetry 2022 Poetry Contest Winning Poems Are Here
We are delighted to publish the winning poems of our 2022 poetry contest judged by Klara du Plessis. Along with the winning poems, we are including the poets’ photos and bios and the judge’s notes.
1st Prize “Mechlorethamine and his temporary absence” – Brian Baker
Mechlorethamine and his temporary absence Five molecules of carbon. This treatment room’s walls, antiseptic and shadow-streaked, watch him falter daily, elbows in another’s arms, bed-to-door, door- to-bed. Eleven molecules of hydrogen. Raises a palm up in both protest and supplication, will wrest himself from most protection. White linens embank, cold rails secure. Two molecules of chlorine. Above him, the squalid drip, offering up the mechlorethamine, its nitrogen mustard mix and tiny atoms, necrotizing. One molecule of nitrogen The sheer intricacy: all the bone and every nucleate lacuna weathering the chemical stain. He hears the windows flex, looks away to the vagrant clouds, becomes in almost every way both shifting and spectral, leaving this room, exiting this body and, from all things temporary and temporal, almost vanishing.
Brian Baker is a London, Ontario poet who began his writing journey back in the late eighties and is now on his first re-imagining. His work has appeared both in print and online in the States and Canada and he was also the 2020 winner of what is now the Antler River Poetry Contest.
Judge’s Notes
“Mechlorethamine and his temporary absence”: Formally precise and cross-disciplinary in scope, this poem offers a terse exploration of loneliness in a clinical medical institution and cancer ward. Isolation itself becomes a relational form of connection, however, as body, objects, and open space fuse into a site of peace and healing.
2nd Prize “Student Housing” – Tom Prime
Student Housing ~ For Amelia what did you eat yesterday? a handful of pistachios and nori. that’s fucked up I am reading Milton: “sulphur and strange fire his own invented torments ...perhaps” and think to turn on the a/c. you have left—the sucking rattle irritates as does the sporadic clicks from the water heater—eyes spilling out of a can, cachalot ultrasound—the glare of frosted pots is compound interest. we shower in shifts when you get home, moonlight snake- grasses the marrow-stuffed curtilage
Tom Prime is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Western University. His debut solo collection of poetry Mouthfuls of Space was released by Anvil Press last year and was shortlisted for the 2022 Gerald Lampert Memorial award. His latest collaborative collection, Bird Arsonist, written with Gary Barwin, was released by New Star books earlier this year.
Judge’s Notes
“Student Housing”: A misleadingly simple text that moves along a poetic axis of sound and assonance. Studenthood functions as an enclosure that delimits the speaker’s lived experience, while curiosity perforates constraints, daringly intertextual.
3rd Prize: “They have my voice” – Sana Mufti
They have my voice. ami, when the sunlight begins to disappear at three in the afternoon, slipping carelessly behind invisible horizons, drawing reckless, orange-yellow lines through thick, dying trees, fluttering leaves, landing like burning scars over the withering green grounds where my black shoe will crumble remaining life under its heavy, ignorant sole, in this moment, in the thoughtful inhalation of autumn breath, i am reminded of death. the sharp sting of it, at least, that swift folding of the heart as it is torn unequally into ragged twos, fours, sixes... and i find myself holding my lungs with both hands, pushing them back inside of me as i trip forward over lost words, thinking of the things i have spoken, wondering how loss can be so profound as to remove me from myself without my knowledge, knowledge is tragedy, when i fall over colonized thoughts, i bruise my knee and hip, my teeth do not recognize who i have become, so they reject me with a bite so hard against the inside of my cheek it bleeds. for years on end. crunch of a rotting leaf. i am reminded of loss. the sensation of it. loss of a life i will never live, life i will eternally lose, my birth a dwindling light, forever goodbye, orange and yellow was the colour of fight in my ancestor’s eyes, in your eyes—ami, where is my rage? i am ashamed, too much confusion, blue and white, pacifies me—sometimes it is easier to not think, to look at a dead brown leaf for what it is, i think knowledge has condemned me to a life of thinking— i think all the time, and too much, ami, now i understand the brutality of watching how quickly i adjust, stand upright and limp to alleviate the pain, and the limp becomes my habitual tread— the way one loses a tongue, a voice, a language, the sting becomes home inside of my mouth, poured out in arrogant academic opinions and poor poetry— sometimes, i forget what has been lost. the teetering sun reminds me in its cold chill, it pushes me back into the night where your leathery hands found the dial to the phone to call me out of habit because you forgot, sometimes, too, that i had left and you are displaced—we are reminded together when you ask me if i am okay, and i cannot remember the words.
Sana Mufti is a creative writer with a double degree in English and Psychology from the University of Toronto and is currently completing her Master’s in English at the University of Western Ontario. Sana strives to explore themes of identity and the philosophy of time and motion. She comments on the personal struggle of defining the self and finding stability in a constantly changing world.
Judge’s Notes
“They have my voice”: A moving, meta-narrative reflection on the act of self-expression through poetry, this poem dramatizes affect (so often the driving force of lyric poetry) to eventually question the ability to create at all.
Announcing Our 2022 Contest Winners Selected by Klara du Plessis!
Antler River Poetry is very pleased to announce the winners of our 2022 Open Theme Poetry Contest judged by Klara du Plessis. A big thank you to Klara for judging and to all poets for submitting their work.
1st Prize: “Mechlorethamine and his temporary absence” – Brian Baker
2nd Prize: “Student Housing” – Tom Prime
3rd Prize: “They have my voice” – Sana Mufti
Congrats Brian, Tom, & Sana!
Antler River Poetry 2022 Open Theme Contest
DEADLINE March 15th, 2022 Extended to March 20th, 2022
Antler River Poetry Contest 2022
Submit your best work to Antler River Poetry’s 2022 Open Theme poetry contest, judged by acclaimed poet Klara du Plessis! Contest entries must be one poem of no more than 40 lines, on any topic, in any style; only submit original work that has not been previously published in print or online.
Send poems in PDF format by email only to AntlerRiverPoetryContest@gmail.com. Please include your name, your complete contact information (including mailing address) and the title of your poem in the body of the email. Poems will be presented anonymously to our judge. Do not include your name in the PDF file of your poem. You must be a resident of (or attending school in) London, ON and surrounding area to enter. Winners will be announced in mid-April 2022 (only winners will be contacted).
- First Prize is $100
- Second Prize is $75
- Third Prize is $50
The winning poets will have their work published on Antler River Poetry’s website and will be invited to read their winning pieces at an upcoming live Zoom event.
Announcing Poetry London 2021 Poetry Contest Winners
We are delighted to announce the winners of our 2021 Poetry Contest judged by Phil Hall. Big thanks goes to Phil for being the judge and to all contestants for submitting their poetry. Congratulations to the winners!
1st Prize “Third in Line” – Kathleen Roffey
Third in Line Carefully sorting through your grandmother’s life. After the Mass, and the burial, and the reception, with those lemon squares you could never stomach. There was so much of her to unearth. When you found it, gold chain in the palm of your hand, you knew it was yours. It was your birthright. Miniature engraved scale resting just below your throat. Both sides equal and balanced. You were the third in a line of Libra daughters, inheriting indecision and a dogmatic civility. Born two days before your mother’s birthday, she always claimed you were her favourite present. When the necklace started to itch, you kept it on despite the burn. * Your grandparents met at a church dance, your parents at a wedding. Easy stories told over Sunday dinners. Comfort in the repetition, it was only natural to fall. You always bought into the fantasy. Butter yellow flowers, rows of tulle knotted around pew corners. You never considered the possibility that the church you were raised in, where you had memorized stained-glass windows, preformed grade school Christmas carols, wouldn’t marry you now. No church would. You never wanted to be the one to break tradition. * You were supposed to be the third in a line of Libra daughters. You were supposed to be daughter. But the irritation never stopped, the necklace heavy around your neck. So lovingly created, features borrowed, matriarchal in design. You couldn’t understand, the feeling devastatingly familiar, of your own body ill fitting and confining. You didn’t know how to tell your mother, the second in line, that this body was no longer yours, that daughter no longer fit. That the procession had stopped.
2nd Prize “Called, Culled, Chosen, Caught” – Penn Kemp
Called, Culled, Chosen, Caught There you are in the sudden confirmation of synchronicity when the radio speaks the word I am writing. Jack Spicer, move back. But keep talking, please, humming through medium cool. So the song responds, corresponds to mood. Ordinary, moving. Ordinary, sacred. Blessed from the beginning, you assert. And I start in sympathy, startled into sense. All the mediums remark in one refrain that the dead are happy now, talking to us in dream. Hello, hollow. Are you there? Where? Who can hear you among the tumult of the damned, Jack? To be named is to be recalled from another realm, to be remembered after such dismembering. This body knows only the present. It obeys the question and strains. Cartilage gives, ligaments stretch— a kind of inflammatory frieze that escapes the ultimate dimensional leap so far, that mimetic fear caught in the doctrine of signatures. I lie flat, listening, learning not to recreate realities that are no longer yours. Nor mine. Abandon plans, idle curiosity, knowing you lie. Goodbye, Jack. The dreadful internalized, I am shelled immobile on a familiar horizontal, ghosted, going nowhere. Outer light allows a muffled certainty beyond gravity, beyond your grave countenance. Who is still speaking, mouthing phrases I hardly hear? Perhaps if I get your words down just right I can fool my fate to take this paper substitute for any further injury it might have in mind. What, I won't ask. Don’t ask.
3rd Prize “Sensory Overload, Echolocation in for Repair” – Lynn Tait
Sensory Overload, Echolocation in for Repairs If I can believe my eyes—it’s late, can’t visualize my heart pain or so my woman-clock articulates like a fine-tuned fork chiming beat-ups per minute. Did I hear you correctly? Echolalia’s long drip convulses through imaginary pools, I smell the quack of controversy from here/hear/there the pitter-patter of its webbed feet, geese in formation honking up the wrong tree makes my ears weep. Heartbreak keeps showing up in this poem like a low frequency ping a mispronunciation a sour consistent stink gliding by so close you can almost not not taste it. Odium flails its wings in all directions. Caught in its own stone-toothed trap, ego feathers up you stay me go. Strange echoes touch me now, like a kindness. Swans—their love dance plays on my fingertips. They trumpet a song, one about the mermaid who learns to swim through fire.
Honourable Mention “Eighty Land Birds to Know” – Deborah Windell
Eighty Land Birds to Know How are you holding up? the doctor asks Her prognosis in the way he put his hand on my shoulder His face both sincere and practiced, his question unanswerable The technician tilts the screen towards us, a digital Borduas This language that none of us speak, pictographs of muscle, bone and blood This will be the last room, her last view An avid birder, I hope that she can hear the cooing of pigeons outside her window We gather on the ward, restless and nodding, desperately snatching up any news like crumbs We stand close together, suspend old grievances We whisper Strangers wearing scrubs come in and out Most are brisk, all are unannounced We are not privy to the choreography We learn the names of the sympathetic ones We thank them. Bring them coffee. Bless them.The hours are measured by paper cups crumpled and discarded in the bin The gurgling sounds from inside her chest an alarm We take turns holding her hand, repeating It’s okay I’m here I love you A year later, a recipe card Found tucked between the pages of Eighty Land Birds to Know. Written in her elegant cursive, a prescription to follow, precisely measured I carefully trace each loop and tittle to summon her, To tell her how much I miss her
Poetry London 2021 Open Theme Contest
DEADLINE: March 15th, 2021
***DEADLINE EXTENDED: March 19th, 2021
Submit your best work to Poetry London’s 2021 Open Theme poetry contest, judged by legendary Canadian poet Phil Hall! Contest entries must be one poem of no more than 40 lines, on any topic, in any style; only submit original work that has not been previously published in print or online.
Send poems in PDF format by email only to poetrylondon.contest@gmail.com. Please include your name, your complete contact information (including mailing address) and the title of your poem in the body of the email. Judging will be anonymous. Do not include your name in the PDF file of your poem. You must be a resident of (or attending school in) London and surrounding area to enter. Winners will be announced in early April 2021 (only winners will be contacted).
- First Prize is $100
- Second Prize is $75
- Third Prize is $50
The winning poets will have their work published on Poetry London’s website and will be invited to read their poems at our April 20th digital video event, ahead of the feature readers.
Announcing Poetry London’s 2020 Poetry Contest Winners
We’re pleased to announce the winners of our 2020 Open Theme Poetry Contest judged by Lucas Crawford. Thanks to Lucas for being the judge and to all contestants for submitting a poem.
• 1st Prize: “The oldest photograph of” by Brian Baker
The oldest photograph of
nature (not some experiment in a dank, darkened room) was by
Niépce and his camera obscura, unroofed high above Le Gras.
Thickly stippled and angled rooftops, shimmering blue on the
bitumen-coated plate.
a person, on the Boulevard du Temple, his image on daugerrotype,
phantoms all around. None of them stopped, though, long enough
to get their boots cleaned, or lean up against a Parisian lamppost.
But he did, and was then so perfect in time and space that
he became a foundling, risen up through fumes of heated mercury.
a hoax, bombastic as it was, perpetuated by Bayard and his “Self Portrait As A
Drowned Man”. Tricked by Daugerre, his Academie honours stolen, he
shows his enemies that he has surely drowned himself because of it,
can you not see the state of decay?
people drinking, around the table. Hill, Ballantine and Bell. Three men, lost in
their Edinburgh ale, a drink so “potent” that Ballantine has made Hill laugh. They
are scoundrels.
the sun and the moon, unassisted, posing in the sky, no need for the head brace,
no need for them to keep their eyes open (so there would be
no flutter). The only concerns were errant light, beams which strayed
from exposure. That and clouds, relentlessly shadowing.
me, as a young boy, grinning out from the top bunk, in a cabin on the Bow. The
tobacco-stained hands of my Grandpa at the table. The battered straw hat his
friend wore. Before all that, I was just a baby. They were fading then (and are
even more faded now) but there are scars on my head, from an operation I survived,
so that I could be in a cabin on the Bow with my Grandpa and his friend and still
look at that photograph today.
the separation of binary stars is what we saw for the first time but always knew
was there. Stars so closely aligned that they appeared as one. Getting us there, though, a
Burgundy skyline begets Parisian shoeshine begets an un-drowned man begets the sun and
moon begetting a young boy, smiling, which begets stars with a shared barycenter and
stellar winds. Yes, the stars have winds!
• 2nd Prize: “Susan Gilbert” by Gabrielle Drolet
Susan Gilbert
possible, but not yet realized —
love like a myth, elliptical.
the letters
revealed little, as did the poems.
when Dickinson said
I have one prayer only;
dear Susie,
that is for you,
who knows what she meant. next-door
neighbors, friends, companions,
sisters-in-law. sharp-sighted observers who imagined
their escapes. to make the abstract tangible
is a double-edged sword. there is such a thing
as too much
freedom. to make
the abstract tangible is to touch
without thinking;
to run a hand
through her hair, to run
a hand across her neck, to kiss
the place
under her chin.
• 3rd Prize: “O” by Megan Silva
O I draw circles around your name. I draw circles. I draw circles around your name and my name. I draw lines through our circles and your name and my name - but there are still circles around your name and my name. Still circles, circling round, circling around your name. Circling around, till there are no names, only circles. Circling around, and around, and around, where there were once two names in a circle.
Poetry London 2020 Open Theme Contest
***DEADLINE EXTENDED!*** March 15th, 2020
Submit your best work to Poetry London’s 2020 Open Theme poetry contest, judged by acclaimed Canadian poet Lucas Crawford! Contest entries must be one poem of no more than 40 lines, on any topic, in any style; only submit original work that has not been previously published in print or online.
Send poems in PDF format by email only to poetrylondon.contest@gmail.com. Please include your name, your complete contact information (including mailing address) and the title of your poem in the body of the email. Judging will be anonymous. Do not include your name in the PDF file with your poem. You must be a resident of (or attending school in) London and surrounding area to enter. Winners will be announced in early April 2020 (only winners will be contacted).
- First Prize is $100
- Second Prize is $75
- Third Prize is $50
The winning poets will have their work published on Poetry London’s website and will be invited to read their poems at our April 22nd event, ahead of the feature readers.
Announcing 2019 Poetry London Contest Winning Poets
We’re pleased to announce the winners of our 2019 Poetry Contest judged by Canisia Lubrin. Thanks Canisia for being the judge and to all contestants for submitting a poem!
• 1st Prize: “Recycling Humanity” by Kayla Skinner
The river is almost empty,
just a leaking sponge that has absorbed all of the city’s problems.
Every now and then it coughs up receipts from the people that didn’t have time to make
dinner at home,
spits out syringes from the people that didn’t eat at all.
Yesterday’s meal: a bottle of Olde English and a torn pair of sneakers.
Dessert was a mother trying to stare at her reflection but only a murky silhouette looked
back.
Her child, mirroring her image, tossed crumbs to the ducks that floated along the bank.
His light smile blows away with the breeze realizing his pockets are empty.
Nothing left to give back to the river; nothing left to trade for the stories his mother has
shared,
or so he thought.
Today, an Olde English bottle rests upon a desk, housing an assortment of pens.
Somewhere, a man walks in patched up sneakers and with a pocket full of crumbs.
• 2st Prize: “No Words” by Kelly McConnell
For my son, age 2
no words
plucked from this infinite keyboard staccato
from the splayed fingers of ink
covering gasps of white pages
can explain the vastness of the ocean
to a tadpole
no way
to chew and swallow the wholeness of absence
the throat-gouging edges of loss
with a mouth tender like moth wings
with teeth just small seeds
alphabet letters planted in the gums
draw in sunlight through his laughter
will it ever be enough
to germinate syllables and symbols
that can twine around his breath
and bear the true weight
of life and death?
• 3st Prize: “Abyss” by Isabella Kennedy
Hidden in the underbelly
of a rotten wharf, my body is dead
weight. My hair, a slimy mess
of rope. My legs, chains
in this stagnant sea.
Your voice crawls
over the broken glass rocks,
over the swollen wood panels, peers
into the dregs of the Pacific
and here I am
a crude mask, face afloat
staring up at the storm.
you whisper into the water:
take off the mask
tell me about it
my ears hear the cloth-stuffed
scream of metal ground against metal—
the handle of my empty pail
hanging from a pillar
like the flag of my depression
half-mast in the wind.
One day you will rise
from this incubation in the mud water
wet like baptism
on the soft tongue of a cracked clam shell—
but Sister, I am drowning
in this marina’s mouth. Swallowed,
sinking like sewage
away from the surface
away from the sky
away from you.
I won’t rise from this
abyss.
Announcing 2017 Poetry Contest Winners
Poetry London is pleased to present the winners of the 2017 poetry contest!
The theme: Canada’s 150th.
The winners:
- Jack Williams
- John Fooks
- Emma Croll-Baehre